Olerud363

https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/video/blue-jays-gausman-tipping-pitches-loss-vs-twins/ From June 2022

This isn't just from A-Rod. It has been talked about since last year.

I saw him at Target Field last year. Game was over like the 3rd inning with Berrios getting destroyed... 5-0. Actually what ended up happening after would have been a s*** scenario for a Wild Card game. Jays came back somehow, with everyone's favorite 5th hitter (my second favorite behind Fred McGriff) tying the game in the 9th. Then the Jays loaded the bases in the 10th and screwed that up big time, also involved a baserunning error (not scoring from 2nd on basehit to center) then Twins win it in their bottom of the 10th. OK. What do we got in store for us? Over before it begins? Heartbreaker? The rare-combo of both? No way they will repeat a big blow lead. I could see them repeating a small blown lead which leads to everyone hating Schneider for tiring out the bullpen yesterday, but not caring because there would be no bullpen for tomorrow anyway.

A-Rod played past high school and that is not what he thought. The entire idea of the splitter is it makes you swing like an idiot because you can't tell it's a splitter until it breaks. Looked to me from watching on TV they were taking some pitches other teams swing at. Yeah there were a few in the dirt but a lot of low splitters, just out of the zone where they didn't swing and a lot of fastballs they took very aggressive swings at. The idea for the 2 pitch, pitcher is that they swing at some splitters and look like fools, and take some fastballs in the zone and also look like fools, they rarely looked like fools. It might not even be a 'tell' technically, perhaps just massive game prep with their video nerds, pitching machine nerds and there hitting strategists who weren't distracted by McCarthy getting voted out yesterday.

Jays had a great chance of securing a playoff spot (like almost 99%) and it meant everything almost literally had to go wrong for them not to make it. The expected outcome would have been they clinched without pressure Thursday or Friday. I believe there were 19 Toronto/Houston/Seattle/Texas games left as of last Monday and I think 16 of them went the wrong way for Toronto. That was still really improbable. It would have taken 1 more to get Toronto out of the playoffs. They missed by 1 game. Another loss for Toronto, another win for Seattle and they don't make it. It get's complicated by everything really had to go wrong. Houston had to win 2/3 against Mariners (because Toronto had the tie breaker over Houston), Texas had to win 2/3 over Anaheim, but not 3/3 (because one of the scenarios where Toronto didn't make it involved a Houston/Texas/Toronto tie) I know there were some harsh words exchanged but things were actually going bizarrely wrong and Toronto ended up a few hours from being eliminated but were saved by the bad Castillo start. lol. All that and now potentially 6 and a half hours from being eliminated anyway. Survived 72 extra hours.

Kirk's homerun rate, like everyone else's on the team has collapsed since 2021. 8 in 165 at bats in 2021, 8 in 373 in 2023.

I actually hate the Os with a passion. People think I like the Os because of my posts. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I just like what they are doing, I think they have the smartest FO in baseball.

But do front offices really see it that way just because the prospect rankings do? Moreno was the 1st overall on lists before he graduated because of days on roster, however Jays return was nothing you would expect from a 1st overall prospect. And I say that as someone who actually liked the trade. I did not expect to get elite value for a guy who missed significant time and had significant power loss because of a thumb injury. Same with Tiedermann. I can't see front offices offering a massive return for a guy with his injury history.

Do you know what ranking Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 80 hit tool, greatest hitting prospect ever, greatest age 22 hitter ever would have in the Twins line-up in terms of OPS? 8th. f***ing 8th. Lewis, Wallner, Jeffers, Jullien, Kepler, Kirilloff, and Palanco have a better OPS in 2023 than Vladimir Guerrero Jr. This team is good. Whatever magic makes hitters good they got it going. Hit 307 homers in 2019, were top 3 in homers in 2020, 2021, and tied for first this year. Let's play some small ball. Gotta play some small ball because 80 hit tool Vlad Guerrero is only 8th on the Twins in OPS. Don't blame the coaches or upper management or the high (a.k.a. low) performance team. Play some small ball. Get it done. Bunt Kirk over because even though he was 8 times the minor league hitter Jeffers was, he now hit's like David Eckstein in a bad year... well maybe not bunt Kirk over because he's 300 pounds, but bunt someone else over. That will show the Twins and their .800 OPS hitters, living their best life, how it's done.

Going into game 4 against Texas, when some people were starting to lose their s***, I ranted about how Texas was guaranteed to win that game because they could gameplan against Gausman. And of course he had a terrible start. Admittedly he pitched well against the Yankees. Then yesterday was terrible. 6.5 ERA, like 5 homers per 9, 9 walks per 9 and forced the bullpen into heavy usage. I do not work in major league baseball ops so don't know all the latest technologies they are using. A-Rod/Buck Martinez think he is tipping pitches, but they come from a different time. I mean could be as simple as Twins and some other teams just do great prep work against a 2-pitch pitcher in terms of recognizing the 2 pitches early (video, bp machines) and prepping to swing not too often.

I think people made the same mistake they did with Seattle last year. The players that played much of the season are not the same as the players that will play the 18 to 27 innings of this short series. According to fWAR twins have the top 2 combined starters in baseball. They are replacing Joey Gallo, Christian Vasquez, and Byron Buxton, who played the majority of the time at their positions with Royce Lewis, Ryan Jeffers and Matt Wallner. So the team that is playing these 3 games is not the same composition as the team that is reflected in the 162 games of which they had a 93 win differential anyway. Same with Tampa, McChlanahan and Franco their best pitcher and player are no longer playing, so the team isn't the same who racked up the 100 win differential.

Before going to bed I checked Sonny Grays stats... sigh. At least I am prepared tomorrow. According to the fangraphs he is a 5.3 WAR pitcher Down 1-0 tomorrow we face the AL co-leader in fWAR. The only good news is that a) the other fWAR co-leader didn't do too good today and Gray's homerun rate is freakish this year, so maybe he isn't really as good as the fWAR says. But seriously? What is it with this board and 2 years in a row kind of under-estimating the opponent. Twins are really good. I think if you looked carefully at who will be actually playing and pitching the 18 or 27 innings in this series the Twins are as tough an opponent as the Rays. Royce Lewis only played 1/3 of the Twins 2023 games, but will likely play 100% of their playoff innings. Same thing happened with Seattle last year. People didn't look at the value of the players who would play the 18-27 innings, but instead just looked at the teams total 2023 performance

Not sure what is going on there. They are hitting less homeruns this year than last but also losing batting average. Like Vlad, Kirk, Chapman and Varsho have all lost some power but also lost some batting average, so whatever the problem is it is knocking both their slugging and their average. So if they try to hit even less homeruns is that even going to help? Less homeruns does not equal more batting average, at least for this team. They are just somehow behind in whatever the latest trends in hitting mechanics, sign stealing (pitch com hacking?), finding 'tells', or amphetamine use is...

I would guarantee you Montreal would support a team that won at the rate Rays do. Expos never made the playoffs outside a weird 81 split season. Rays drew 1.4 million for a 99 win team coming off of 4 straight playoff appearances. In 1996, the last decent team in Montreal they drew 1.6 million for an 88 win team, coming off a losing season, a great season cancelled because of a strike and losing their best 2 or 3 players after the strike. In 2003 Montreal (with 15 games in Puerto Rico) drew 1 million for an 83 win team that flirted a bit with contention, lost out to the Florida Marlins (who their corrupt former owner got in a corrupt deal), and who it had already been decided was moving. I think Montreal would do fine with a 95 a year win team that made the playoffs 5 years straight.

Moreno's injury in 2021 really f***ed the team, missed like 3/4 of the season after starting off hot as hell, .370 .430 .600 or something. He was on pace to be a legit 1 or 2 overall prospect and if he had played a full 2021, and likely the thumb injury throttled his 2022 numbers a bit. Just didn't have that 'top 5' prospect shine, like Carroll and it was too bad, as Moreno for another top 5 prospects might have been on the table if it wasn't for that injury. Cedric Mullins? Maybe there is still a chance for Varsho to have a couple seasons like that. Mullins didn't blossom until 27 or 28.

As crazy as I was last week I am not too torn up over today's loss.... kind of expected, 3 game series is just luck with evenly matched teams and a closer look at the Twins has me convinced they are actually better than the Jays. Walner their 8th hitter has much better stats than the Biggio our 5th hitter. Taylor their 9th hitter is better than Varsho, at least this year. Actually a deep lineup. Weird looking at their stats at first glance because so many of their guys had half seasons, just a bunch of 15 homer guys at first glance, deeper look reveals a good team. 15 homers in 80 games is good.

They needed to 4 runs to win today... no one is manufacturing 4 runs. They needed a 3 run homerun, or some walks and a double. Rays played some small ball today. Lost 4-0. Bunted twice in the early innings. They were behind 2-0 the entire game, 3-0 most of the game... is there anywhere in the game a bunt and flyball could have got them a couple of extra runs? Maybe in the 8th after Vlad's double they could have got an extra run with some small ball, but they were down by 2 there.

Which one are you thinking is good? Actually looking at Twins rotation Ryan, Ober, and Maeda all look competent. Twins actually could go somewhere. I understand the Trop is jinxed for the Jays, and Rays won 99, but wishing for the Twins was dumb too. Wishing for one team always goes bad in the playoffs.

You can say the same thing about half the playoff wins in Blue Jays history. Yeah if Vlad Guerrero pulled a fastball 400 feet, and connected with another 400 feet oppo Jays win instead of Twins, but it didn't happen that way. At some point you need one of these guys to hit a couple of homers in a playoff game... Though I guess that did happen with Hernandez last year. So you need someone to connect for power in a playoff game that doesn't feature an epic bullpen meltdown.

A lot of discussions though about xba being flawed because of spray direction and other factors. Talked a lot this year about players like Kendry Morales, the older version of Pujols and Cabrera, Vlad and Chapman under-performing the expected stats. Too many long outs to centerfield not a fluke... Not saying I totally believe it, but this year I've for sure heard more people wondering if spray direction isn't random, and the stats need to be broken down a bit more, like pulled ground balls versus pulled fly balls and stuff.

Twins had a 93 win run differential, led the league with 233 homers, and have 2 good starters and a lights out closer. I think Jays and twins are equivalent over 162 and Twins might have an actual advantage in a 3 game series.

This is why people are starting to say the board is super-unwelcoming. Give me a break. Of course I know that. Just to explain it to you no, I did not mean "Someone else should have been hitting 5th tonight". I mean "This team has had a bunch of strange offensive collapses (Varsho, Kirk, Chapman) and didn't sign much power so we don't have a 5th hitter, so yeah it defaults to Biggio. If anyone had told you Biggio was going to hit 5th in a playoff game, you would have thought he had a huge rebound... but Biggio hitting 5th in a playoff game because the offense is dysfunctional...

Laughing at these guys saying we need small ball in a game where the twins are winning 3-1 with all runs on homers. Pitching and defense fine, but need to combine it with some long balls.

I like Biggio more than most, but he's not a 5th hitter for a playoff team.

I have watched playoff games closely since 1989 (I don't really remember 85, though I watched). Ricky Henderson 2 homeruns, Jose Canseco 5th deck, Alomar off Eckersly, Sprague, Bautista, EE. Last year Cal Raleigh and Carlos Santana then Seattle scoring their other runs on extra base hits. Never seen small ball win a playoff game. Note small ball did not work when Nixon bunted.